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A small town's window on a polarized US
Flaws and follow-through
Yet the viewpoints in Whitehall are not all so stark.
Inside the windowless American Legion Post 367 on Fullerton Street, club manager and veteran Richard Bateman ponders whether to close early because of snow.
"Have a seat," he offers, describing himself as "chief cook and bottle washer."
With a wooden shuffleboard lane on one side and a video of Elvis crooning in a biplane on the other, the club is an apt backdrop for Mr. Bateman's historical perspective on the Iraq conflict.
Of the World War II generation, Bateman joined the Army in August 1945, two months after graduating from high school. Soon after, he served occupation duty in Korea. Next, he did a year's duty escorting the bodies of US troops from temporary graves in Europe back home for burial.
As with many of his era, Bateman considers US casualties in Iraq "relatively light for the amount of metal lying over there."
The Republican says he supported the Bush administration's decision to go to war. Today, though, he's critical of both "miscalculations" involving Iraq and Bush's overarching doctrine of preemptive war. "I'd give Bush about a B minus," he says, chiding the administration for misjudging how US forces would be received by the Iraqi people.
"We've got the bear by the tail," he quips, describing the unwieldy Iraqi insurgency and factional conflicts he worries could lead to civil war.
In Bateman's view, the United States should not go to war unless it is attacked or another country requests US military intervention.
"The American people will support you a lot better in response [to aggression] rather than holding your jacket while you start the fight," he says.
Across town, a younger US military veteran agrees. Preston O'Connor is a Whitehall patrolman and Army guardsman who returned just last week from eight months with his infantry unit in Kosovo. A registered Republican, he's not sure whether he'll vote for Bush, partly because of Bush's leadership as commander in chief.
"He just doesn't really seem to have a coherent plan for the war on terrorism," says Mr. O'Connor, who's been in the Army for 13 years.
Noting that the Army is only half as big as it was when he first entered, O'Connor says he's paying personally for Bush's heavy deployment of the guard and reserves. "I lost 50 percent of my salary" while in Kosovo, says O'Connor, who has three children and worries about being able to send his oldest son to college.
He describes his deployment as "a big chunk out of [my] life" and adds that he's not sure if he'll reenlist next year.
And while some Republicans criticize Bush's handling of the war, some anti-war Democrats in Whitehall say they would vote for the president simply to maintain continuity in a turbulent time.
"Putting someone new in there in this volatile situation would be a bad move," says the accountant, Ms. Burke. Even as she vents over Bush's strained relations with European allies, she points to Spain's change of government as a dangerous precedent that Americans should not follow. The terrorists who bombed Spanish trains "got exactly what they wanted," she says.
Despite hesitation, obligation to stay
Moreover, regardless of their political views, not one of a dozen Whitehall residents interviewed calls for an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
While some express impatience for withdrawal, they say the US is morally obligated to stay the course for at least another year.
"We should stay as long as it takes to ensure the safety of the people there," says Burke's co-worker, Harley Smith.
Still, many in this old industrial region worry about the domestic economic impact of the mounting cost of the Iraq war. With unemployment in the valley running higher than the national average at 5.7 percent, and the mean wage in the valley at $32,000, job security is the top concern of factory workers like Vincent Beller.
Sitting in his living room in Egypt with his three children, Beller says his electronic car-parts factory has lost 400 of its 1,300 workers in the past two years, and Iraq isn't helping.
"The Iraq war is going to be long-drawn-out and expensive. It's draining energy and money that would go to create jobs and cut taxes and build our infrastructure."
The war on terrorism needs to be defensive, not offensive, he says. "We've pushed terrorism off shore, but we need to win by winning hearts," he says.
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Sara B. Miller contributed to this report.
IRAQ POLICY: A SLOW DIP IN APPROVAL:
Americans were asked, 'How would you grade President Bush's performance in handling the Iraq situation?' Support has declined since the end of combat last May - despite an upward bounce after Saddam Hussein's capture in December.
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SCOTT WALLACE - STAFF
SOURCE: CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR / TIPP POLL
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